Barrow V A team called Brackley

[dcarradus]

poor conditions didnt help today but that was a poor performance the team was lacking in every department i know brackley are ment to be one of the better sides in the league but we were poor early days yet but im not feeling to confident as i cant see where the goals are goto come from

[The Cats Whiskers]

Absolutely shocking but it's early days. Major worry for me is RB Burns looked woeful every time ball was within 60 yards of him!! Nothing at all up top, surprised DB pulled Bowen before Arnison cos I never noticed Arnison was on the pitch he was totally AWOL!!! Wouldn't av scored if we were still there now!! What was happening near players tunnel some guy havin major verbals with McMillan?? Oh how I've missed u Holker st......

What happened to the other right back who played in nearly all the pre-season games? I thought he look to have a bit more steel and aggresion than Burns and was certainly a better attacking option. I assume he was not offered a deal.

[John Very Little]

Thought we created absolutely nothing today and only displayed any real urgency once we'd gone a goal down.
Meechan isn't a winger (or forward) and we looked better when Moyo (1 throw-in excepted) and ARH came on. I really hope that Bayliss isn't showing undeserved favouritism to Meechan for his effective assistant manager role saying how good he is - well he wasn't as a player today, Burns didn't have a great game either. Several times we did break and there was nobody to pass to or we tried to walk the ball in when players were available to pass to.

The Mail reported Parkinson had a thigh strain so I presume that's why he wasn't selected, we deffo needed him as we created very little. In addition we had no sub-keeper on the bench today, in those conditions today it would have been easy to slip on the pitch. Would have been better to sign someone up just to sit on the bench?

We lost 1-0 and its only the first game but I hope the overly defensive performances aren't going to continue being a regular feature of Bayliss teams this season as it was awful to watch. One thing I didn't agree with was a couple of fans totally barracking the team when they were coming off the pitch at the end a I think a couple of players reacted.

[Tunnocks]

I didn't think it could possibly get any worse than last season. That proved me wrong. That must of been the worst performance I have seen from any Barrow side.

[pjdaly]

Predictable clichés flowed during and after the match:

One referred to how bad the ref was. True, but how can that excuse our performance???

A second was that Brackley didn’t deserve three points. True, they were nothing special and scored from their one attempt on goal (gifted by bad defending). More to the point though, we deserved no points because we also had only one attempt on goal in the 90 minutes and possessed zero creativity.

You could go on endlessly criticising our lack of technical quality today. But more alarming was the lack of passion, running and fight, particularly after going one down.

In trying to be positive you would have to think that a midfield axis of Hulbert and Harvey must be good. We all know Hulbert can be a formidable defensive midfielder and Harvey was, in my opinion, the most talented footballer in our squad last season (but also disappointed hugely through his tendency to go missing for large chunks of the season). Surely in this league Harvey has the potential to be a real star? I can only hope so. But today Hulbert was surprisingly quiet and Harvey made no impression when he came on. In the case of the latter, maybe there’s the excuse that he doesn’t yet know the players around him. What I cannot believe is that a Hulbert-led side should be so quiet and passionless. I just hope these two can get their acts together in the middle of the park; if they do then there has to be hope going forward because today, along with the rest of the team, they were quiet, far far too quiet, and I am desperately searching for a silver lining here.

[Reg]

I hope the overly defensive performances aren't going to continue being a regular feature of Bayliss teams this season

The first half of the season we had Mackreth aside, has a Bayliss team ever been anything but overly defensive?

It's his style/philosophy/call it what you want and it's unlikely to change.

[John Very Little]

I hope the overly defensive performances aren't going to continue being a regular feature of Bayliss teams this season

The first half of the season we had Mackreth aside, has a Bayliss team ever been anything but overly defensive?
It's his style/philosophy/call it what you want and it's unlikely to change.

I know he likes to play defensively but I thought setting us up with 2 so-called wingers may improve things but clearly they didn't play like wingers of the Mackreth style of getting down the wings and creating chances for the forwards.

[NUFFSAID]

That was dire, never been as bored at a match in ages..........get me a holiday form.

[barrowfan]

Talking of cliches the classic Bayliss excuse was once again trotted out. 'We conceded a sloppy goal.'

Same old same old

[supporter for life]

All kick and rush from Barrow with little creativity. The game had little to please either sets of supporters. Very little football was played by either team. If Brackley are expected to be up there in the promotion pack then this is a very poor league and maybe we will pick up a few points along the way. Firstly the players need to learn how to pass the ball to each other. Maybe this could be done at the training sessions, I assume, the team have.

[John_Bucks]

Jesus! It's the first game against a highly fancied side with a brand new team. Massive over-reaction to today.

[spirit of 1990]

Jesus! It's the first game against a highly fancied side with a brand new team. Massive over-reaction to today.

Totally agree.

First game, let's see how we're doing in one/two months time.

Bad conditions lead to both sides having no sort of foothold in the game - coupled with our newly assembled side playing their first league game together.......let's give it a chance!!!

One game in bad conditions with a completly new squad against a settled, estabablished team at this level, give it a chance ffs!

[bobbie moore]

Poor performance but hopefully we can improve....
We are very poor in midfield again with neither Hulbert or Davies impressing..where was Lacey today
Spoke to Parkinson said he had to get his fitness level up,think a few of starting eleven need to as well
As said early days but nothing today to indicate better for future.

[Scott]

It's too early to judge individual players and it will take some a while to get used to each other and this league, but that was pretty poor today.
One shot on target in 90 mins and I think there was only one shot off target. Once Brackley scored you knew that was it and we weren't going to equalise.

On the plus side I don't think Robbie Williams lost a header all day even after being clattered by his own goalkeeper and getting patched up. Exactly the sort of player we missed last season at the back.

One thing that baffled me though was why take Gareth Arnison off, a proven scorer at this level, when you're 1-0 down at home to put Cliff Moyo on? Arnison might not have had a good game like the rest of them but surely is our main goal threat?

Agree with whoever it was that mentioned the other right back we had on trial John Bateson, he impressed when I saw him and you have to think he must have got a better offer as surely Bayliss would have offered him a deal...

[barrowfan1999]

A few pics and videos from todays game.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbM7EuV ... e=youtu.be